Lakers forward Julius Randle is proving to be a lot of fun. He’s already shown that he has the right combination of skill and sass to truly antagonize his opponents, and last night he showed an ability to treat defenders the way a grizzly bear treats a meal.

Have you been watching any Lakers games this year? Perhaps you haven’t given them much thought ever since Kobe Bryant finally fucked off and took all the schadenfreude-driven reasons to watch the Lakers with him. Well guess what, the Lakers are kind of fun now!

For their first week of the season, the Golden State Warriors largely looked like another data point to support the theory that new superteams need some time to gel—a blowout loss to the Spurs, followed by wins over the Pelicans and Suns that were far closer than they should have been. But the last few days made it…

Incoming Lakers head coach Luke Walton was a rookie in L.A. once upon a time, and he joined up right at the tail end of the first era of dominant Kobe Bryant teams. Yesterday, he told a story about Kobe’s intensity back in those days to Jesse Williams on his “Open Run” podcast yesterday. He showed up to practice…

The Sixers’ Jerami Grant is making the most of his NBA Summer League assignment. Here he is tonight dunking all over freshly-drafted Lakers center Ivica Zubac, reminding us that the Croatian has a long way to go before he can assume the title of Croatia’s greatest athlete named Ivica.

Timofey Mozgov is champion. Now, Mozgov is a free agent and the man just got paid. According to Woj, the Los Angeles Lakers kicked off their summer of whiffing at free agents by quickly getting into “serious talks” with Mozgov. Those serious talks turned into a four year, $64 million deal.

Philadelphia 76ers president Bryan Colangelo revealed that former LSU forward Ben Simmons, the presumptive No. 1 overall pick in the upcoming NBA draft, declined the Sixers’ invitation to a pre-draft workout. There’s an impulse to point and laugh at the 76ers, whose shameless tanking has cost them a look at a top…

The Los Angeles Lakers have fired head coach Byron Scott, reports Adrian Wojnarowski. If you live anywhere near Southern California, that sound you hear is millions of Lakers fans shouting hosannahs into the air.

Plenty of athletes found a way to congratulate Kobe Bryant after his 60-point performance Wednesday. Bills running back LeSean McCoy praised Bryant, cracked jokes at Bryant’s former teammates hugging him after the game, and called currently active Laker Lou Williams “soft.” Williams didn’t like that.

There are, obviously, rules that explicitly govern sporting events. But there are also implicit rules, too, ones that say things like You always play to win and No player is bigger than the game. Last night, Steph Curry and Kobe Bryant took turns shooting holes in those implicit rules, and it made for one of the best…

Kobe Bryant is the patron saint of volume shooters forever and ever amen, and he really went out and Did The Shit tonight, ending his career with an insane, revelatory game in which he scored 60 points on 50 shots in a win over the Jazz. 60 points! 50 shots! What the hell man!